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Newb at Upgrading comp

A

airlonnie

n00b
Joined
Jul 9, 2004
Messages
5
I built my computer a few years back....when max payne 1 had been out for about a month?

System Specs
P4T-E Asus Motherboard
2.2 ghz Pentium 4 North Wood? Norway? Something to do with cache being 256...not sure
768 RD-Ram(Generic)
Radeon 9500 Pro(replaced my ti500)


After being able to play doom 3 at only 800x600, I realized that my computer was becomming, or already is, obsolete. Never wanted to admit it.

Im assuming that doom 3 is going to be the new standard in gaming, and Id at least like to be able to play at 1152x????.

With halflife 2 comming out one of these days , Id like to know what I can do to boost this system. Is it going to be able to play the new games that are comming out? Is my only problem in one area? Im not rich and Id only like to replace some things, instead of the whole rig. Is there anyway I can boost this system? Do I need a gig of rd ram? that crap costs a fortune....what do you think? Do I need a new rig period?
 
Your motherboard was from when the Northwood A (400 MHz FSB) chips were still being made, and also unfortunately required the use of RDRAM (which, yes, costs a kidney).

I'd say that the CPU would be the thing holding you back right now, because 400 Mhz FSB Pentium 4s weren't really that good because the cihps need lots of bandwidth (and 400 Mhz FSB doesn't provide enough. The P4 got better with 533 Mhz FSBs, but with the 800 Mhz FSB today it's better).

I'd say that if you can, just live with the settings. If not...

- Sell the RDRAM, CPU, and mobo. You might be able to get a lot for the RDRAM because many people are still using RDRAM based P4s from a couple years back. Then buy an Athlon XP and motherboard combo with DDR RAM (much cheaper than RDRAM).

As for Doom 3 being a standard in gaming. Probably down the line, but it's not like the change is gonna happen overnight. Maybe when everyone starts using the HL2 or D3 engines, or the Crytek engine (Farcry).
 
Whats an Athlon? Is that some kind of generic brand? Is it as good, or better than p4? It sounds generic, so Im guessing that its cheap, right?
 
I would say to sell that for as much as you can get, throw in a few bucks of your own and then build a new system.

You could slap a better proc on there if the MB supports it, but that is just a band-aid for this system. The Rambus mem is what is going to screw you in upgrades because you can't just go out and upgrade your MB without having to purchase all new ram.

My "upgrade" recomendation is to buy a new CPU, MB and RAM. The combination of the 3 will set you back about $4-500 but would get you close to where you could have an upgrade path.

Look into something similar to this:
A64 3200 about $250
ABIT "KV8" K8T800 MB $91
512 MB (1x512MB) XMS 2-3-3-6 $117
(grab another stick when you have the $$ and your gold)
 
airlonnie said:
Whats an Athlon? Is that some kind of generic brand? Is it as good, or better than p4? It sounds generic, so Im guessing that its cheap, right?
Click to expand...


It was AMD's top of the line chips until they released the A64 a few months ago. Now they are considered to be an excellent choice for gamers who don't have the cash to upgrade to the next gen stuff. (see previous post)

There is nothing wrong with Athlon chips, they will outperform an Intel chip at similar speeds in several benchmarks.
 
airlonnie said:
Whats an Athlon? Is that some kind of generic brand? Is it as good, or better than p4? It sounds generic, so Im guessing that its cheap, right?
Click to expand...

... :eek:

Athlons are processors from AMD, the biggest competitor to Intel in the PC CPU market.

Athlon XPs are their top 32-bit only chips (well, behind the Socket 754 Semprons), and they perform very well, especially if compared to your current Pentium 4 chip. They are cheaper than current Pentium 4 chips.

Now, blackrino does propose a nice solution. If you could sell the system (to a non-tech savvy person - we'd probably pay less ;) ) then you could use the money to buy an effectively awesome computer.

Also, about DDR RAM. No, it's not like RAMBUS where you have to buy in pairs. They come in DIMMS (dual inline memory module). One stick of DDR RAM is all you need, no pairs or whatever.

However, I wouldn't propose buying the kind of memory he suggests because you seem to be on a tight budget concerning comp matters. Crucial RAM is $80 for half a gig, and it's solid stuff.

but, ahem, I still run a Pentium 4 2.4 C. :D
 
airlonnie said:
wow? You dont have to buy DDR ram in pairs?
Click to expand...

nope. You can do pretty much whatever you want with DDR. It does not require that it be run in pairs.

There are some general rules though. If you are putting two sticks of ram on a dual-channel chipset, they should be close to, if not exactly identical.

Use the same speed of RAM, otherwise your mem will only run as fast as your slowest chip.



The CPU/MB I listed above does not have dual-channel capabilities so there are no pairing requirements.


*edit* one of us needs to type faster BillLeeLee :)
 
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